Assessment and Analysis of the Factors that Impact Lebanese Women Entrepreneurs’ Contribution to the Economy

Entrepreneurship is seen as an important tool in the prevention of women's unemployment and in the fight against poverty in underdeveloped and developing countries. Entrepreneurship becomes particularly obligatory for many women to substitute a kind of employment to provide additional income to the family. Drawing on Bowen and Hisrich's a career perspective to women's entrepreneurship and the context of a successful entrepreneurial career of a woman in Turkey, this chapter aims to discuss women's entrepreneurship by focusing on the reasons as to why women might choose entrepreneurship as a career choice. Another contribution is to provide a platform aimed at encouraging the mindset for the development of women's employment and entrepreneurship. In this context, the chapter provides explanations for the reasons for women's entrepreneurship within the push and pull factors. Furthermore, the main demographics of women entrepreneurs, their general personality characteristics, the sectors they operate in, and the difficulties they face are discussed.

Women who operate small-scale farms and sell to small markets in Indiana may encounter certain obstacles and constraints due to self-employment in the traditionally male-dominated field of agriculture. Researchers have recognized the role of sustainable agriculture ideology in attracting women to these niche agricultural markets. Despite increasing opportunities for women in sustainable agriculture, research suggests that traditional gender roles are often maintained, manifesting itself through several obstacles (Pilgeram & Amos, 2015). Female agricultural entrepreneurs encounter obstacles including work-family balance, geographic barriers, access to physical resources, access to financial resources, access to places of information. Previous research indicates that female entrepreneurs have less access to human, social, and financial capital to support their business ventures (Powell & Eddleston, 2013). However, this study explored the feminine perspective and management styles which may serve as beneficial resources. The purpose of this study was to explore and describe existing obstacles encountered by female entrepreneurs in niche agricultural markets and their methods of building resilience in their business. Quantitative data was collected through an online survey of 62 agricultural entrepreneurs across the state of Indiana. Participants were asked questions pertaining to their business structure, resources, constraints, processes, achievements, and demographics. Several responses to open-ended questions were also collected and analyzed through open, axial coding. Study results include the diversity of the population, value of human capital resources, prioritization of quality products, significance of internal constraints, discrepancies in division of labor and women’s obstacles to access to social networks. A greater understanding of the obstacles encountered by women agricultural entrepreneurs can also provide valuable insight to Land-Grant University Extension, policymakers, and stakeholders in the Indiana agriculture industry.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to understand the new kind of investors – women entrepreneurs – and to find out the factors that drive their investment behaviour and investment decisions.Design/methodology/approachThe approach of qualitative enquiry was used for the research in which 18 in-depth exploratory interviews were conducted to identify the determinants of the investment behaviour shown by women entrepreneurs, a growing segment in investment. The accumulated data was analysed using open coding.FindingsThe research show that women entrepreneurs consider investment as a long-term instrument are risk averse and quite conservative. They are willing to take risks in business but not for making investment decisions. The reasons for this low-risk behaviour include lack of time to understand investments and lack of knowledge about various products. The research asserts that if they spend time to be informed about the nuances of investment instruments, they are likely to take risks for their investments as well. The interviews also reflect that women entrepreneurs often mimic the investment behaviour of their parents.Research limitations/implicationsThe sample for this research was taken from only two cities in India and a broader research in other cities as well will expand the understanding of investment behaviours demonstrated by women entrepreneurs. The differences in women entrepreneurs’ investment behaviour due to culture and ethnicity of the respondent are also not considered.Practical implicationsThe outcomes of the research will help the investment manager to get a better insight into the psychology of women entrepreneurs as investors. This will help them develop personalized and relevant portfolio recommendations. Second, the findings will help service providers to develop training modules for their investment advisors by sensitizing them to needs and wants of women entrepreneurs as potential investors. Third, the research will be of interest for policymakers and researchers to understand the determinants of personal investment decision-making amongst women entrepreneurs. Finally, it will help women entrepreneurs understand and mitigate their biases while taking investment decisions. It will lead them to take wiser investment decisions, thereby reducing the risk and maximizing opportunities of returns.Social implicationsThe research will provide opportunities for enhancing gender equality amongst investors. This can be achieved by educating the investment advisors on the traits and preferences of women entrepreneurs as investors. Designing and delivering specific workshops on investment awareness for women entrepreneurs can also be accomplished based on the findings of this research.Originality/valueTo the researcher’s best knowledge, the investment behaviour of women entrepreneurs in India has been little investigated. This study appears to be the first qualitative research attempt in that direction. This paper will be useful in understanding the behavioural biases by women entrepreneurs in considering their personal investment decisions.

Purpose This study furthers the body of knowledge on entrepreneurial decision-making, entrepreneurial marketing and female entrepreneurs by exploring practical implications of heuristics and biases in female entrepreneurs’ marketing decisions. Heuristics and biases influence many entrepreneurial decisions. Moreover, some of the most important entrepreneurial decisions are marketing-related. Given that the entrepreneurial marketing behavior emanates from entrepreneurial thinking and decision-making, one may conclude that female entrepreneurs’ marketing decisions are susceptible to heuristics and biases. This paper aims to explore the outcomes of heuristics and biases in entrepreneurial marketing decisions.Design/methodology/approach Data were collected by conducting semi-structured interviews with 19 Iranian female biotech entrepreneurs and analyzed by thematic analysis.Findings The findings indicate that introducing pioneering products to the market, overestimating product’s market appeal, unprepared entry, underestimating the competition, overcoming entry impediments, entry postponement, growth, success in incremental innovation and failure in radical innovation are the main outcomes of the identified heuristics and biases in the female entrepreneurs’ marketing decisions.Practical implications This paper has some precious practical implications for marketers as well as female entrepreneurs running small businesses. Generally speaking, reducing the negative impacts of the identified heuristics and biases of this study while enhancing their positive effects will increase the chances of female entrepreneurs to compete and succeed in tumultuous markets. Furthermore, our most important managerial implication is regarding overconfidence, which was very common in the female entrepreneurs’ marketing decisions by having various positive and negative outcomes. Thus, female entrepreneurs should be careful of this fateful bias in their decisions by knowing the most common signs of overconfidence.Originality/value This paper is unique because of not only identifying the main heuristics and biases but also their major outcomes in entrepreneurs’ major marketing decisions. Moreover, this paper is a pioneer in exploring heuristics and biases in female entrepreneurs’ decisions.

More and more women enter entrepreneurship, be it in Germany or around the world. Enterprises founded by women entrepreneurs play a more and more important role and can make an important economic contribution. Still, we need to know more about the topic of success and women entrepreneurs. Often, women business owners and entrepreneurs are seen as less successful than their male colleagues but research does not call the previous definition of success into question. Therefore, this chapter takes a closer look at the concept of “success” in general, in order to develop a model of women entrepreneurs’ success which includes both individual and contextual aspects. Building on this model, we present results from an empirical study which draws on interviews with women entrepreneurs and key experts in Germany. We investigate the question of success of women entrepreneurs based on their personal and business goals and motives in order to shed light on their individual understanding of success.

This dissertation studies gender disparities in entrepreneurial finance and consists of three papers. The first paper systematically reviews the focal literature. The second paper employs experimental approaches to investigate entrepreneurs’ gender homophilic behaviours when seeking early-stage investments. The third paper delves into the mechanisms and boundary conditions of entrepreneurs’ gender homophily towards investors, identifying and analyzing potential moderators at the individual, organizational, and institutional levels. The first paper is a systematic literature review, elucidating the drivers of gender disparities in entrepreneurial finance, the theoretical mechanisms underlying and the boundary conditions that amplify or mitigate them. By applying a robust method to identify 123 papers published in 54 high-quality journals from 1988 to April 2023, we propose a conceptual framework to systematize this literature. The framework considers three dimensions: the various financial channels entrepreneurs utilize, the supply and demand sides of the financial markets, and the micro, meso, and macro levels of analysis. This framework highlights critical gaps in the literature and suggests future research directions. Female entrepreneurs often avoid external financing due to a lack of human and social capital and the pervasive stereotype that entrepreneurship is male-dominated. Those who seek funding may receive less than desired or face rejection due to taste-based or statistical discrimination by capital providers. Besides, boundary conditions, such as business size, economic cycles, institutional factors, and alternative financing channels, may alleviate or exacerbate gender disparities but are often overlooked. While scholars have extensively studied the supply side at the individual level, more research is needed to understand the demand-side factors that lead female entrepreneurs to opt out, receive less funding, or face rejection. Additionally, meso-level factors (e.g., organizational dynamics) and macro-level factors (e.g., gender equality, market development) and their interactions with micro-level factors remain underexplored. The second paper draws on the theoretical lenses of gender homophily and the stereotype content model to examine how same-gender effects influence female entrepreneurs’ perceptions and behaviors in the context of early-stage financing compared to a neutral context. Existing studies suggest that gender homophily significantly impacts female investors’ funding decisions in female-led businesses. We hypothesize that female entrepreneurs, like female investors, exhibit a preference for same-gender relationships, as homophily suggests that similar individuals interact more frequently than dissimilar ones (McPherson et al., 2001). To test our hypotheses, we conducted a vignette experiment with 393 US-based prospective or current entrepreneurs (51.4% men and 48.6% women). The results support our hypothesis: female entrepreneurs exhibit stronger preferences for environments with higher female investors’ presence in the early-stage financing context compared to a neutral context. Moreover, they are more likely to initiate contact with female investors and accept their offers, even after controlling for their perception of investors’ warmth and competence. These findings suggest that the scarcity of female investors contributes to gender disparities in entrepreneurship. The predominance of male business angels, combined with female entrepreneurs’ same-gender preferences, may lead female entrepreneurs to self-select out of business angel financing. The third paper builds on the same experiment as the second paper, with variations in the sample and analytical focus. More specifically, 338 US-based current entrepreneurs (49.7 men and 50.3% women) were included. It investigates the mechanisms driving female entrepreneurs’ preference for same-gender investors and explores boundary conditions at the individual, organizational, and institutional levels. More specifically, female entrepreneurs’ inclination toward female investors stems from both personal preferences and rational considerations. They expect smoother communication and coordination with same-gender investors, but this same-gender partnership may come with the risk of being stigmatized as less competent. The results demonstrate that the gender homophily effect weakens when female entrepreneurs have known investors, thus enabling them to communicate and coordinate effectively with investors regardless of gender, or when their businesses are already generating revenue, thereby signaling their viability and legitimacy. Conversely, their gender homophily preference for investors strengthens in states with a higher representation of female investors, as female entrepreneurs perceive greater legitimacy when receiving investments from female investors. Moreover, the negative impact of not securing additional capital diminishes if there are more female investors available to support subsequent funding rounds.

Intention plays a critical role in enhancing entrepreneurial activity among women entrepreneurs. Although several studies have revealed that psychological capital influences intention formation, few have explored this relationship when dealing with social capital and entrepreneurial attitudes. This research designed a structural model to construct women entrepreneurs’ intentions, including the interaction of psychological capital, social capital, and entrepreneurial attitudes. Based on self-administered or online questionnaires filled out by 479 Malaysian women entrepreneurs, data was collected using stratified random sampling. Structural equation modeling (AMOS 21.0) was used to analyze the data and test hypotheses. Bootstrap confidence intervals were calculated to determine the mediating effect. The findings show that social capital, psychological capital, and entrepreneurial attitudes interact to encourage women entrepreneurs’ intentions to expand their businesses. Social capital and women entrepreneurs’ intentions were partially mediated by entrepreneurial attitudes. Lastly, entrepreneurial attitudes were also discovered to partially mediate the influential relationship between psychological capital and women entrepreneurs’ intentions. This research sheds new light on women entrepreneurs’ intentions to expand their entrepreneurial activities, which has policy implications. Moreover, future research directions and theoretical insights are discussed.

Purpose: Women entrepreneurs in Tanzania are making significant contributions to their local economies, driving innovation, and creating employment opportunities. However, they still face numerous challenges, including limited access to financing, inadequate business skills, and gender-based discrimination.To address these challenges and unlock the full potential of women entrepreneurs, mentorship programs have emerged as a powerful mechanism.
 Methodology: The study examined the effect of empowering women entrepreneurs through mentoring programs, a case study of Babati District Council. The study used mixed research approach and employed sequential explanatory research design. Descriptive and regression analysis were used to analyze the data and presented by tables and figures.
 Findings: The findings revealed the strong relationship between mentorship programs and women entrepreneurs' empowerment, as evidenced by a high R-squared value of 0.76. This means that approximately 76% of the variation in women entrepreneurs' empowerment can be explained by mentorship programs. The significant relationship between mentorship programs and women entrepreneurs' empowerment is further supported by a low p-value of 0.001, indicating that the observed relationship is unlikely to be due to chance.The study concluded mentorship programs have a significant impact on women entrepreneurs' empowerment.
 Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: From the findings, it recommended fostering mentorship opportunities to support and uplift women in their entrepreneurial journeys. This study has contributed to the advancement of knowledge and practice in the field of mentoring programs for women entrepreneurs in Tanzania. The research has provided valuable insights and recommendations that can guide policymakers, practitioners, and researchers in their efforts to support women entrepreneurs. The study proposed a theoretical framework that elucidates the means by which mentoring programs can empower women entrepreneurs. It also identified crucial elements of effective mentoring programs, including regular meetings, clearly defined goals and expectations, active listening, and constructive feedback. Additionally, the study pushed for policies that foster an enabling environment for women entrepreneurs, including access to financing, education, and networking opportunities. Such policies can facilitate the growth and development of women-led enterprises.

PurposeWomen’s involvement in business is growing and positively impacting the national economy, especially in developing countries. Women entrepreneurs’ success has shown women’s abilities to empower and support national policies and agendas. Efforts and tenacity in a consecutive e-commerce business require innumerable tactics since the business ecosystem has become more challenging and complex. Therefore, this study aims to identify the multiple mediation influence of the need for achievement and locus of control towards the relationship between entrepreneurial knowledge and women entrepreneurs’ e-commerce ventures. The theory of planned behaviour provides excellent opportunities for understanding and envisaging entrepreneurial actions. The study pre-supposes that the interaction of these variables ultimately defines women entrepreneurs’ e-commerce ventures.Design/methodology/approachThis study used a cross-sectional design, and the survey data were collected from 259 valid women entrepreneurs. The study population covers the Klang Valley area, composed of the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur and Selangor, Malaysia. The instrument used in this study was adapted from previous studies. Structural equation modelling was used to establish the measurement model and examine the direct and causal path models.FindingsFirstly, results show a positive relationship between entrepreneurial knowledge and women entrepreneurs’ e-commerce ventures. Secondly, the results show that the need for achievement and locus of control plays an intermediate role in the relationship between entrepreneurial knowledge and women entrepreneurs’ e-commerce ventures.Research limitations/implicationsThere are some limitations to this study. Firstly, the main limitation is that it is impossible to generalise the study’s findings since it only examines the sample in the Klang Valley area. Therefore, it would be better for future research to conduct similar studies in other areas. Next, the data were collected cross-sectional, and considering the changes in time that might influence human behaviour, future studies might consider a longitudinal research technique. Thirdly, this study model is limited; hence, future studies can advance and develop the current research model by including more variables, such as moderating and mediating variables.Practical implicationsEducation is one of the driving factors that help increase entrepreneurs’ knowledge and skills. Lifelong learning programs must be implemented for women entrepreneurs to increase their knowledge. The relevant parties, including the government, entrepreneurial bodies, training institutions and universities, must provide and develop a more affordable, flexible and inclusive short-course training program and activities for women entrepreneurs.Originality/valueEmpirical studies have proposed reconsidering the effect of entrepreneurial personalities for a better understanding of entrepreneurship engagement. These unique characteristics could act as an enabler for a capable entrepreneur. Many studies have examined the direct relationship between predictor and intention or between predictor and behaviour. Nevertheless, only a few studies have identified the influence of mediating variables in the theory-based framework. By adding the role of personality traits (i.e. need for achievement and locus of control), this study delivers fascinating insights into the current entrepreneurship research and literature. This study also makes a meaningful contribution to entrepreneurship literature, especially in Malaysia’s context of entrepreneurship ecosystems, considering there are still few studies on women entrepreneurship. This study also provides exposure and explanation of the function of the need for achievement and locus of control as the mediators for the relationship between entrepreneurial knowledge and women entrepreneurs’ e-commerce ventures.

PurposeThis study aims to explore how women entrepreneurs in small businesses encounter digitalization and learn to use social media at work by combining theoretical perspectives from research on women entrepreneurs in small businesses, digitalization and use of social media and digital skills in response to calls from earlier research regarding women entrepreneurs' adaptation to an increasingly digitalized world.Design/methodology/approachQualitative methods were applied including a total of 13 in-depth interviews in two phases, in 2017 and 2019, with 11 women entrepreneurs in nine small businesses, along with observations of their digital presence.FindingsThis study contributes with new insights regarding women entrepreneurs' behavior and ways to acquire digital skills to keep up the pace in digitalization. Learning by doing, informal learning and step-by-step self-development entrepreneurial behavior were practiced along with strategical recruiting of young digitally skilled employees, i.e. digital natives. Findings state that in order to remain competitive and generate business growth, women entrepreneurs constantly have to learn new skills to capture the potential of digitalization especially regarding the knowledge and use of social media. The women entrepreneurs emphasize challenges of digitalization as limited resources, constant need of new digital skills, digital stress or even burnout due to internal and external demands on online presence, scanning and maintenance of social media platforms. In contrast to earlier research, the women entrepreneurs did not express any significant gender stereotyping online, yet they strongly emphasized the continuous challenge of work––life balance.Originality/valueThis study contributes to an under-researched field with novel research combining theories from women entrepreneurship and information and communication technologies (ICTs) related to digitalization with a special focus on social media. Following the era of digitalization, the women entrepreneurs have to act as digital entrepreneurs finding new innovative ways of doing business. The importance of recruiting young digitally skilled employees in small businesses is vital for women entrepreneurs, since the needed learning and business development takes place when digital natives and digital immigrants work together.

Recognizing the importance of women entrepreneurs for economies and societies, researchers and policy makers are increasingly interested in supporting women’s entrepreneurship activities. Enhancing the wellbeing of women entrepreneurs is essential not only as an ethical imperative but also as a mechanism to understand and improve the process and outcomes of women’s entrepreneurship activities. This chapter employs an identity lens to offer a novel perspective on women entrepreneurs’ wellbeing in a way that is reflective of their nuanced and subjective experiences across multiple local and national contexts. The chapter presents the findings of a literature review on women entrepreneurs’ identities and wellbeing to explicate the multidimensional relationship between women entrepreneurs’ identities and their sustainable eudaimonic and temporal hedonic wellbeing. It maps out the multiple identities salient to women entrepreneurs and considers three main themes: 1) entrepreneurship as an authentic expression of a positive identity, thus contributing to women entrepreneurs’ eudaimonic wellbeing; 2) women entrepreneurs’ multiple conflicting and synergetic identities influencing hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing; and 3) identity work as an active approach to enhance hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing. The chapter concludes with a consideration of what the findings mean for researchers, women entrepreneurs, and actors in entrepreneurship ecosystems.

Most entrepreneurs define success as business growth. However, for women entrepreneurs, success incorporates various aspects and meanings. Thus, success is by far one of the most complex concepts in the field of entrepreneurship. Because women entrepreneurs’ success is a multifaceted concept, it has, therefore, multiple interpretations. Moreover, researchers across the world provided various definitions correlated to qualitative or quantitative approaches to this phenomenon. In the meantime, cross-country studies revealed multiple factors affecting women entrepreneurs’ success. A crucial factor affecting the success of women entrepreneurs across the world is the culture. Thus, studies conducted across the globe revealed various types and dimensions of culture and indicated different effects of culture on women entrepreneurs’ success. The authors discovered the significance of gender for interpretation of success and culture. The purpose of the study is to examine various effects of culture on women entrepreneurs’ success in a cross-country context and to design an integrative, holistic theoretical framework that enhances our understanding of success for women entrepreneurs from a gender perspective and explains the effects of culture. The value of designing such theoretical framework is the increase in knowledge with regard to cultural impact on women entrepreneurs’ success and the request for viable solutions to be designed by policy makers, which can help women entrepreneurship to grow.

Female entrepreneurship is one of the main drivers of economic and social development in any country. Over the years, a great deal of research has been conducted in the area of female entrepreneurship. However, to date, there has not been much discussion of female entrepreneurs' religious behaviour. Hence, this study examines the nature of female entrepreneurs' religious behaviour and how Buddhist teachings and spirituality influence female entrepreneurs' business decisions throughout start-ups and the ongoing business operations. Although Buddhism is a vast literature, this study focuses mainly on the five precepts. This study is based on social constructionism philosophy, and narrative design was used to explore the female entrepreneurs' religious behaviour. A snowball sampling procedure was applied, and seven interviews were conducted to generate data for the study. This qualitative data analysis was complemented and supported by narrative in-depth interviews, observations and collected documents and field notes. Results revealed that Buddhist female entrepreneurs' business decisions are influenced by their religious teachings, especially the five precepts and religious spirituality. The main themes related to the start-up, operations and pricing, networks, profit sharing, finance, problem solving and sustainability. Further, female entrepreneurs have engaged in solid religious practices in businesses and personal lives since their childhood. Buddhist teachings and spirituality can be identified as the critical factor of Buddhist female entrepreneurs' business success and work-life satisfaction in Sri Lanka. The findings can facilitate and promote spiritual entrepreneurship among entrepreneurs. It is valuable to deepen our understanding of the role of Buddhist teachings and spirituality, which affects entrepreneurs' business decisions.

The main aim of this study is to examine the Female entrepreneurship skills which motivate them to turn into a successful female entrepreneur. United Arab Emirates has always welcomed Women's no matter what color, religion, language sex or nationalities. Being the safest place on earth United Arab Emirates has always given special respect and place for Women in all sectors The main functions of a women entrepreneurs is to explore the prospects of starting a new venture, Undertake risks, handle the risks and economic uncertainty which happens in business, innovate new ideas and technologies, Coordinate administer, control Supervise and possess to be a good leader. At present United Arab Emirates is welcoming and opening new opportunities for Women's to explore their ideas here. United Arab Emirates is a welcoming landscape for startups. United Arab Emirates has a diverse economy which is a very huge opportunity for an entrepreneur. In Abu Dhabi, Last decade Women Entrepreneurs have been recognized as the untapped source of economic growth. However they still represent a minority of all entrepreneurs. Many authors have examined the Women entrepreneurs but up to date no studies has been conducted in Promoting Women entrepreneurship skills in United Arab Emirates. This may be because of the lack of information's. The research aims to focus in encouraging and promoting Women Entrepreneurs by developing their entrepreneurial skills which will turn them to become a successful. This research study will adopt ethnological nature of design. This study is predominantly based on primary data. This study collected information from primary data and secondary data also for the best effective way to make the study convenient personal interview or structured and unstructured interview will be framed for the collection of data from the sample women entrepreneurs. The collected data will be arranged, classified and organized as per the logic, similarities, uniqueness and methodology. The collected data will be analyzed using statistical package for social science software (SPSS). It's a software to manage the data and calculate a wide statistical data's. A pilot test will also be carried out to check the feasibility and reliability of the structured interview. The study adopted statistical tool Chi Square Test. The study also uses Correlation and ANOVA tool for analysis. The study further discusses the ways to improve the skills by Development, motivation and training programs. Women entrepreneur has been observed as a major source of knowledge about women's entrepreneurship and they are increasingly recognized as a valuable tool for its development and promotion. Women entrepreneur is related to both women's position in society and role of entrepreneurship in the same society. Women entrepreneurs must be taken seriously at individual level( the choice of becoming self-employed) and at the firm level( the performance of women owned and managed firms).The study also discussed about the training programs, in which models are considered to study into the relationship between the Women entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship skills, and the market. This study concluded that if the women is motivated more and encouraged will surely lead to become a successful women entrepreneur in United Arab Emirates, promoting the economic growth of the country and increasing employment opportunities and setting up example showing the women are no lesser than man and se. Noting is impossible for women also. The author thus submitting a theoretical study of Encouraging and promoting women entrepreneurs by developing their skills in United Arab Emirates .Only if the Entrepreneurial Skills are developed and focused on, the Women entrepreneurs can develop into a successful Entrepreneurs.

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to explore determinants that influence women entrepreneurs’ performance in micro and small enterprises in Gondar city, Northwest Ethiopia, and in turn contribute to entrepreneurship-related literature mainly in developing countries.Design/methodology/approachThe study employed an explanatory research design with agreement of primary data collection via a cross-sectional survey questionnaire followed by quantitative research approach. The sample of this study was 180 women entrepreneurs and selected using random sampling technique.FindingsThe findings of this study revealed that educational level, previous entrepreneurial experience, access to business training, access to finance, access to business information, government support, land ownership, and tax are significant in explaining women entrepreneurs’ performance in one hand. On the other side, however, age, marital status, access to market, and access to physical infrastructure are found to be insignificant variables in determining women entrepreneurs’ performance.Research limitations/implicationsThe study used one time data for determinants like level of education, previous working experience, age, and profitability of the enterprise. Thus, due to frequent change in such variables, the study may not reflect the dynamics of the data, which would have a convincing influence on the conclusion. In addition, the research has only consisted of 180 samples. Moreover, such number may not represent the whole population of the entrepreneurs of Ethiopian MSEs. In future research, it is advisable to expand study factors, use interviews as a research tool, and make a comparison between women and men entrepreneurial performances.Practical implicationsThe paper might serve as an input for officials to consider such determinants and encourage an environment that increases women entrepreneurs’ performance. In addition, the study might help women entrepreneurs in addressing the factors affecting performance to take actions towards improving their performance and in turn contribute to job creation, wealth, innovation, and poverty alleviation.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the literature on the determinants of women entrepreneurs’ performance in micro and small enterprises. Specifically, it tests the impact of educational level, age, marital status, previous entrepreneurial experience, access to business training, access to finance, access to business information, access to market, access to physical infrastructure, government support, land ownership, and tax on the performance of women entrepreneurs.